The Swimmer

Author: By Zsuzsa Bank

Harcourt, Inc.

Seventy-five years ago, Ernest Hemingway’s literary gifts held the world in thrall, primarily because of two techniques he mastered. He was aware of the fact that the more a writer leaves out of a narrative – the deeper the “back story” – the more powerful is the impact of the writing. Second, as an heir to Mark Twain’s legacy, Hemingway focused on details and facts, and eschewed ideology and romanticizing. He was a “realist.”

Zsuza Bank is an odd disciple of the old man, but a disciple nonetheless. The Swimmer, her deeply affecting, profoundly charming and masterful first novel achieves enormous impact by leaving the adult world of explanation out. The narrator is a young woman, Kata, who barely survived in post-1956 Hungary, a land haunted by Soviet occupation. Kata relates her tale from an adult vantage point, but in a voice voluntarily emptied of sophistication, in order to assume her inner child’s perspective. This inner child, the Kata who lived her own fateful formative years, is brilliantly observant, focused on details of voice tones and facts of facial expression, but not privy to adult reasoning and dark adult motives. The result is a Zen-like awareness of the world, into which the book invites you via the narrator’s voice.

As the story begins, Kata’s mother, Katalin, has abandoned the family and fled Hungary to “the West,” leaving Kata and her little brother, Isti, living with her emotionally incompetent father, the infuriating Kalman. Kalman is usually unemployed, drifting from relative to relative, bringing his two children with him, where they stay until they wear out their welcome and are forced to move on. It is obvious that Kalman has a lover, the married Eva, who gives birth to a half-brother of which the siblings are unaware. The noose of tragedy slowly tightens on Kata and Isti.

Among the gallery of characters Kata introduces to the reader are the sympathetic and tender young woman Virag, her repressed boss Iren, and Mihaly, whom both love.

Katalin’s mother, Kata’s grandmother, visits Katalin in Germany, and returns with a story that makes it devastatingly clear to Kata and Isti that their mother will not be returning to them. Heartbroken, Isti becomes radically listless, resulting in a tragedy foreshadowed by Isti’s reckless affection for swimming at any time under any condition. The culminating scene, unfolding with a melancholy inevitability, is a stunning portrait of the impotence of loving community to defeat fate, but of the importance of community nevertheless.

Zsuzsa Bank has bestowed a treasure upon us with this exquisite book, which evokes reverence for life and compassion for disparate people through the eyes of a young girl.  VS

John Hughes is a spiritual sojourner with a penchant for hoary old tunes from before the birth of rock and roll. A single father of two, he's lived in Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Calcutta, India, in search of elusive bliss.